Monthly Archives: May 2011

Bill Bishop reports on the closure of the last Eastern Kentucky news bureau:

The reporters who worked Eastern Kentucky news bureaus helped change the nation and brought Kentucky together. The last bureau will close this week.

It’s fitting that Dori Hjalmarson’s story Sunday was about the decline in population in Breathitt County, Kentucky, as people abandon that coalfield county in search of work elsewhere because Dori is leaving, too.

“It’s an absolute fact. The history of the newspaper publishing industry is the history of failure,” says Ed King, the charismatic head of the British Library’s newspaper collection. King paints a bleak picture – but he is overseeing the library’s ambitious attempt to make millions of pages of yesterday’s chip paper available online for the first time. This, he claims, could give “short-lived, ephemeral titles” a second birth.

FOR decades, the uninterrupted programming on PBS has been one of its most distinctive selling points to audiences and philanthropic and corporate supporters alike. But those leisurely stretches of break-free programs could be going away.

Which cities are America’s best-read? There’s no need for guess work any longer, now that Amazon.com has compiled all of its book, magazine, and newspaper sales (in both print and Kindle format) since January 1st of this year for U.S cities with populations of more than 100,000 and ranked them according to their per-capita sales. Some of the results (via Mashable) are ho-hum, others more surprising.

Since Aol purchased the Huffington Post from Arianna Huffington in February for $315 million most of the subsequent coverage has focused on the widespread layoffs of Aol employees; the hiring of experienced reporters (many of whom are notably from the NYT, but more on that later); and Arianna’s verbal tete-a-tetes with NYT managing editor Bill Keller.

When it comes to Twitter, journalists tread a thin line. While a lot of news organizations strongly suggest their reporters sign up for an account and gain followers, many don’t have a written social media policy. Even if you are off the clock, something you share in 140 characters or less can come back to haunt you. Here are eight journalists who should’ve thought twice before hitting the “Tweet” button. (Note: I’m going to post the first four today and the next four later in the week.)